Everything changed after I died. Three times. Tough day, that. The first two times they worked furiously to resuscitate me, restore a heartbeat, respiration, CPR, the basics… it was sausage factory emergency medicine at its finest, with unsung heroes stubbornly refusing to let death win. The third time, however, I was truly dead. Or so they say – all the best medical minds with all their monitors and other gadgets agreed that there was no way back, not from an alpha coma.

They were just waiting for my next of kin, my twin sister, to come in from Seattle to say goodbye and authorize them to unplug me. Technically speaking I wasn’t “dead” dead – I might have lingered on for a while even without life support, but the neurologists assure me that there was no chance of ever being “alive” again, not once I’d sunk into an alpha coma. A lingering vegetative state was the best I could have hoped for. Or the worst.

I’m not sure if dying just once would have had the same effect that dying three times did; there’s no way we’ll ever know because I died all three times in less than ninety minutes, not regaining consciousness until nearly two weeks later, against all odds. It must have all been thoroughly unpleasant, but I have little to no memory of any of it.

This part is what the doctors tell me, that I was clinically dead once where I fell, my friends performing CPR in an effort to keep my body and brain oxygenated enough to avoid irreversible damage, holding out for the ambulance to arrive so the EMTs could take control.

Then again in the ambulance, heart and respiration stopped as the EMTs worked furiously to hold on, bagging me, CPR, defibrillation, epi, the works. Alive only in the sense that they wouldn’t leave me alone and let me go, but apparently trying mightily to pack my bags and move on.

Then the third time, in the emergency room as the doctors tried to patch enough breaks, rips, and tears to make it worthwhile to continue transfusions, to continue to try. All that blood splashing out onto the floor – most of my own, plus the better part of fourteen units from the blood bank – seems like such a waste. Defib again, several times, more epinephrine, eventually put back together enough to be put on a ventilator and wheeled to the ICU, not expected to make it more than a few hours.

When they’d connected the EEG and gotten only alpha wave activity of uniform frequency and amplitude, zero variation, and nothing at all on either beta or theta waves even when they’d applied stimuli, they had assumed all their efforts were wasted. Too much time without oxygen, too much blood loss, too much damage; it wasn’t a surprise, they said, just a disappointment. Nobody likes to fail, especially people at the top of their profession.

But all of this was lost on me. I was “there”, of course, but not really there. I burned a little O2, generated a little body heat, required some changes of bandages, produced a bit of urine through the catheter, all of which they carefully monitored, but I was a lump of meat.

The medical team stayed in touch with my sister, Ella, and at the end of the first week, surrendering to the obvious had suggested that she might want to come and say goodbye – and, not coincidentally, sign the necessary forms.

It ended up being thirteen days that I existed in this state, lucky thirteen, a time about which my only hazy recollection is the scent of lilacs. Lilacs, my mother’s favorite flower, clumps of which she’d cut from her prized bushes during the short spring flowering season and put in vases around the house to share their sweet scent with us, a practice she’d continued until her own death seven years and three months before mine. Her death had proven more permanent than my own brief flirtation with the Reaper, cancer claiming her at sixty-eight. Odd, that I’d smelled her lilacs while I was dead.

Other than nothing – and lilacs – the next thing I was aware of was a crushing sense of loss, of sorrow and pain, of loneliness. It wasn’t coming from within, though, not my own sorrow or loss, but rather from an external source. There were waves of sorrow and sadness washing over me, crushing grief assaulting me with a strangely powerful force, unlike anything I’d ever experienced, forcing me to open my eyes as I struggled to understand what was happening.

As my vision slowly cleared I saw Ella sitting beside my bed, her head bowed over my right hand, which she clutched in both of hers. I heard her sobs and felt her hot tears fall on my hand and wrist. I watched her for a moment, puzzled. Had someone died? Why was she here? What didn’t I know?

It hurt to see the way she was suffering, to feel her pain; I wanted to say something, to comfort her, to find out what was wrong, but I couldn’t speak, not with a tube down my throat. I just knew that I had to make my dear sister, my only remaining family and someone I loved deeply, somehow feel better. Her heart was obviously broken, and I was unable to help. I saw her head jerk up slightly as I agonized over her grief, wishing I could help, almost as if she’d suddenly heard or felt something, and then I squeezed her hand.

Her head snapped up the remainder of the way and her beautiful hazel eyes met my matching pair. Her eyes widened in shock. “Jon? Jon, oh my god! Can you see me?”

Unable to speak, I raised my eyebrows and squeezed her hand again.

“Jon, god! Blink if you can see me!”

I blinked and was suddenly awash in sensations of joy and elation.

Tears still stained her face, but it had otherwise transformed to a look that was a mix of joy and sheer disbelief. “Can you hear me, can you understand what I’m saying?”

I blinked again, and with a shriek of joy she released my hand and ran into the hallway, calling for the nurse, a doctor, anyone. The powerful sensation of joy that I’d felt faded as she released my hand, but I had no time to think about that as my room was quickly flooded with medical staff.

I soon had stethoscopes on my chest, lights shined into my eyes and ears, blood pressure cuff attached, pulse and O2 sats taken, and was generally poked, prodded, and violated. It was decided to test whether I could breathe on my own and the respirator was turned off and detached. When I did okay, they quickly removed the tube from my throat, a very unpleasant experience that I recommended strongly against.

I still had sensors on my scalp for the EEG, and the leads were quickly reattached; I had all the waves now, some of them going crazy as various people worked around me, which seemed to utterly blow the mind of the neurologist. He instructed everyone to go hands-off and stand back so that he could get a reading with less interference from other bodies, grunting in surprise as I quickly settled into more-or-less normal rhythms.

He was muttering to himself as he disconnected me. “Jon, I’m going to want to check you more thoroughly later, when things settle down and it’s quiet. There are still a few minor anomalies, but you’re mostly normal. It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw, simply unheard of. It just doesn’t happen; you should be dead, young man. You’re either a very lucky or a very unusual man.”

With those gentle words of encouragement, he wandered off, muttering to himself in confusion and leaving me to the care of the doctors that were more concerned with the massive injuries to my body than what might (or might not) be happening in my head. They continued to poke and prod and run every test they could think of as Ella stood beside me, tightly gripping my hand and refusing to be budged.

I was bombarded by sensations and emotions as various people touched me; shock, disbelief, concern, awe, confusion, compassion, Ella’s unbridled joy, on and on to the point of being overwhelmed. I didn’t understand it; I felt battered and bruised mentally to go along with the aches and pains that I was gradually becoming aware of throughout my body, but when I tried to ask the doctor about it all I could do was make a low squeak, and he quickly shushed me.

“Shhh, Jon, don’t try to talk. You’ve had that tube in your throat for almost two weeks, so it may take your larynx a couple days to recover. I’m Dr. Arthur, your internal medicine specialist. I’ll ask you a series of yes and no questions; nod or shake your head if that doesn’t hurt you, otherwise blink once for yes and twice for no, got it?

I nodded. It hurt. I decided to use the alternative plan as he began since my eyelids were the one part of my body that didn’t seem to hurt.

“Do you know your name?”

One blink.

“Do you know where you are?”

Two blinks.

“You’re at St. Mark’s Medical Center; you’ve been with us almost two weeks, since the day after your accident. You were moved here when it became apparent how much damage you’d sustained. Do you remember what happened to you?”

Two blinks.

He smiled. “You got the double-whammy. Dr. Feldman is right, you should be dead. You were hit by lightning, but apparently, you’re the dramatic type and that wasn’t enough for you, so you also fell about forty-five or fifty feet out of the tree you were taking down. Actually, your friends say the lightning blew you out of the tree, so you didn’t just fall.”

I felt like I almost remembered it, that I could just about recall being up in a tall, dead oak that we’d been removing for the homeowner, cutting and then lowering the upper limbs on ropes. But then I’m an arborist, the foreman of a tree removal crew. I make my living taking down sick, dead, or unwanted trees, so I’ve been up a lot of trees. Maybe I was recalling an entirely different day – and besides, the day I was vaguely remembering we’d been under clear, blue skies, I think. I was frowning as I tried to sort it out and he seemed to read my mind.

He went on, “It was a freak thing, no way could you have known. Ever hear of clear sky lightning?”

One blink. Yes, I’d heard the term.

“The storm was almost thirty miles away, but the lightning went sideways across the sky, a powerful bolt by all reports. It hit the top of the tree you were in, the highest thing anywhere around, but when it went down the trunk it found you, a much better electrical conductor than old, dry wood.”

I had a hazy recollection of being on only my climbing belt and spurs, no harness or safety line affixed because I was moving around too much as I removed limbs. It was careless, but quicker, a costly shortcut. I blinked once to acknowledge his words and encourage him to continue.

“The charge jumped to you, entering at your shoulder – you have a burn there - and traversed your body, exiting at your ankle. Apparently, you wear some kind of metal spikes for climbing?”

My climbing spurs, yes, of course. I blinked once. He continued, “It jumped back into the tree through the right ankle spike, where you have a second burn, and finished its trip to earth down the tree trunk, all in a split second. Your friends say you virtually exploded off the tree in a flash of light and debris, that your safety belt totally failed, and that you struck several branches on the way down.”

He shook his head. “Amazingly, that was a good thing; hitting the branches beat the crap out of you, but it also probably saved your life. A straight, uninterrupted fall from that height would almost certainly have been fatal; until about an hour ago, we thought you were gone anyway.”

I couldn’t help but think of the old saying about how ugly one person could be; that they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. I figured I probably fit the metaphor pretty well at that point.

When I offered no response, he asked, “Would you like a list of your injuries? It’s quite impressive.”

I figured if he was impressed, what the hell, I might enjoy hearing it too, so I gave him the affirmative single blink. Ella continued to sit and hold my hand, and I continued to sense gladness, relief, and joy from my twin, although it was heavily tinged with worry. I still didn’t understand the sensations, but I’d become alert enough to realize that they were my sister’s emotions, not my own.

I forgot about it for the moment as Dr. Arthur began his litany. “The most significant was the lightning strike, of course, because it stopped your heart and precipitated the fall that led to all of your other injuries. You were lucky that your friends knew CPR; they kept at it until the paramedics arrived and took over, and they bagged you, zapped you – defib - several times before they got a heartbeat but still had to rely mostly on CPR all the way in. They said they lost you once more on the way, but dragged you back.

“You had some internal injuries and bleeding to go along with all of your external injuries; we had to do some repairs on your liver, which entailed removing a small piece that was too badly damaged. We thought you might lose a kidney, and almost had to remove your spleen to stop the blood loss, but those injuries began to improve while you were in your coma still. There was a lot of bruising and shock to other organs, but nothing lasting.

“Beyond that, your right leg is a mess. In addition to the lightning burn where the charge exited your body, you have a broken femur, which was a compound, or open fracture; the bone was sticking out several inches through your skin, and there was significant bleeding due to torn muscles and blood vessels… not your femoral artery, fortunately, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You also fractured both your tibia and your fibula, tore your ACL and MCL, and dislocated your patella. Now that you’re apparently going to live that leg will need more work, probably including steel rods and pins. Still, you will likely always walk with a limp.

“Somehow your left leg got off easy; you managed to break just your fibula, which takes some doing without breaking the other bones, although you also dislocated your ankle and hip. Sounds bad, but it’s about your least damaged part. You with me so far?”

I blinked an affirmative answer, wondering about the “so far” portion of the query; how much longer did my tale of woe go on? I was about to find out.

“Your next major injury included another stroke of good luck; you apparently hit something jagged on the way down and tore through the skin and all the muscles of your abdomen. You’ve got a row of staples from the top of your pubic bone up to your left lower ribcage, but you lucked out and somehow your peritoneum didn’t rupture. If it had, it would have been spaghetti city and it probably would have been a bridge too far for you to return from, given all your other injuries. To put it bluntly, you didn’t spill your guts, which is a very good thing.

“You’re in good physical shape, so your muscle tone helped, and your head is apparently made of stone because you had only a fairly minor concussion and no cranial bleeding. Your helmet stayed on, by some miracle, and you didn’t land on your head or that helmet would have been wearing you.”

I smiled, appreciating both his gallows humor and his blunt, no-nonsense approach.

He went on; “Right arm, you broke the humerus, did some shoulder damage besides the lightning entry point burn, and broke your clavicle, which is why your right upper arm is in a cast and sling; you also dislocated your thumb. On the left side, you broke both radius and ulna in your forearm and crunched up a few of the carpal and metacarpal bones in your wrist and hand, which is why that’s also cast. I don’t think either of those will require additional surgery, although your left wrist might if there’s ligament damage. Obviously, since you were almost certainly going to die, all of this was put on hold.

“Let’s see, what else… hairline fracture of your pelvis, two slightly fractured lumbar vertebrae, the bruised spleen I mentioned, broken nose and a couple of loose teeth, and three cracked ribs, although we have no way of knowing if the ribs happened in the fall or during the CPR. Other than basically dying on us three times, I think that’s about it. Probably hurts when you breathe, doesn’t it?”

Everything hurt, but I blinked once, slowly, and he chuckled. “Must be tough to sort that from all the other aches and pains, huh?”

I blinked again, and he patted my shoulder – the left one, fortunately. “We’ll get you some better painkillers, maybe a morphine drip you can self-administer as needed.”

Ella had been sitting silently, taking it all in, but now she had questions, most of which I wanted to ask; we’ve always been pretty simpatico that way, perhaps because we shared both a womb and our early lives so closely. “You said they might have broken his ribs doing CPR?”

Dr. Arthur shrugged. “It’s not uncommon, but if they hadn’t done it he would have certainly died, so small price.”

“What other surgeries will my brother need? Is he going to be okay?”

“He should be okay eventually, barring any setbacks, but it will involve time and a whole lot of physical therapy and there may always be some lingering after-effects, some disability. This was a major trauma, after all. As for additional surgery, the only one I’m sure of is that right leg, which needs a lot of work to get it put back together properly. Fortunately, they shouldn’t have to have him in traction, with his leg dangling; they’ll likely use steel pins, fine steel cables, and a tension-rod or two on the outside of his leg to keep everything stretched and aligned. Sounds awful, I know, but it’s all relative; he was dead, after all. Other than that, maybe the wrist. Any other questions?”

Ella looked thoughtful. “How long will Jon be here?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Here in the ICU, maybe another day or two, and then we should be able to get him into a regular room. I’d guess we’ll keep him until we complete any other surgeries deemed necessary and then transfer him to the rehab hospital, but that will mostly be up to his orthopedic surgeon – and there could always be additional surgery later, as things begin to mend. Fortunately, we have a very good rehab center locally, although some past patients swear it’s run by the Marquis de Sade himself.”

He looked at me. “You’ll be there for quite awhile Jon, so get used to the idea.”

She smiled at me, and then at him. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been wonderful to me through all of this, and pulling Jon through it… well, that’s just a miracle. I can’t thank you enough.”

She hugged him, and he returned it, smiling. “Wish I could take credit, but I have to admit, I thought he was a goner. Glad I was wrong, but maybe it was you here by his side, talking to him, that pulled him through. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”

He paused, then addressed me directly. “Jon, you don’t suffer from bashful bladder, do you?”

Odd question, but I blinked twice; no, it wasn’t something I’d ever dealt with.

“Good, because we really should get that catheter out; the longer it stays in, the greater the chances of infection or other complications, but with your arms so banged up, you’ll need some help for a while with the basic functions. You okay with that?”

I thought about it. Being essentially an invalid for the foreseeable future was going to take some getting used to and would include, it seemed, a lot of pride-swallowing. I didn’t like the idea at all, but I had to face reality. I shrugged and gasped at the pain, a sharp reminder of just how helpless I was. I blinked once instead.

He smiled. “Wounded pride, I know. Let the pros help you; it’s what we get paid for. I’ll send your nurse in to remove that, and the orthopedist and physical therapists will be around to talk to you in the next day or two. You should be able to talk more easily by tomorrow, but don’t overdo. Hang in there, miracle man, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ella turned away as the nurse removed my catheter. I’d expected it to hurt, and my dick was about the only other part of my body beside my eyelids that didn’t already; I was braced for it, but it was quick and painless, and she was so matter-of-fact about it that it spared any embarrassment.

Plus, I reminded myself, they had been caring for me, head to toe and everything in between, for almost two weeks and for hundreds of other patients their entire careers. Dealing with all the issues and functions of the human body was undoubtedly old hat to them, if not to me. I was just going to have to cope with the emotional discomfort along with the rest; maintaining any dignity was not an option.

Ella stayed for hours the day I awoke, deep into the night, and held my hand and talked to me. I responded with my blink language as best I could, although I did manage to whisper how much I loved her. We cried together, but it was mostly tears of joy and relief and gratitude for each other, all we had left of our family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ella stayed four more days, during which they performed surgery on my right leg and reset a couple of other fractures, including my left wrist. They told me that my leg was a train wreck and that I’d require rehab therapy on it long after everything else had healed, but that everything had gone reasonably well. Reassured, Ella finally went home to Seattle, to her husband and daughter, my niece, promising to come back to see me soon.

The physical therapists came to visit two days after the surgery; one male, Brad, and one female, Eva. My first impression was that they were both quite nice, extremely athletic and fit and that Eva was a knockout, a statuesque, muscular, blue-eyed blonde. Only later would I recognize, through endless hours of sweat and pain, that both were evil incarnate; I would soon come to think of the Aryan-looking Eva as Eva Braun and of him as Bad Brad.

They had gone over my list of injuries and built a therapy plan that we reviewed together, explaining that they were attached to the rehab center I’d soon be moved to but routinely did early post-surgery therapy sessions at St. Mark’s. Mostly it would be range-of-motion stuff at first, to prevent joints locking down and muscle atrophy, then later they would add strength, agility, and balance exercises.

It would usually be one of the two of them, I was told, alternating with a third therapist named Julia, or, on rare occasions, someone filling in for one of the three. That was my gentle introduction to the hell of rehab that would soon follow, starting the following day.

It hurt, a lot; I knew it was necessary and hung in to the best of my ability, pushing myself to go as long and hard as I could. Brad and Eva had similar styles, wisecracking, joking, cajoling, and occasionally berating me with a little tough love if they thought I was slacking. It was effective but sometimes became annoying. They knew, I think, how much pain they were putting me through, but to acknowledge it or show any sympathy would have been self-defeating.

Julia couldn’t have been more different; first, she was small, not the imposing physical specimens the other two were, but she was physically strong and had an implacable will. If Julia decided we were going to do something, we did it, no cajoling involved. Hers was a quiet strength and determination, but I learned quickly that her will was made of the same high-tensile steel as her lean, hard body and that there was no point in resisting; that she was easy to look at eased the pain a little bit, but only a little.

Dark-haired and attractive, she had the same hazel eyes that Ella and I possess. Hers, however, rarely seemed to reflect the same sparkle of vitality or simple joie de vivre that I was so accustomed to seeing in my sister’s, instead seeming always to be cautious, or to carry a deep sadness bordering on depression. She had beautiful, full lips and an amazing smile, but she rarely showed it, and then only fleetingly, seeming to begrudge herself so much as a moment of happiness.

The funny thing was, of all the doctors, nurses, therapists, and friends that came and went, she was the only one I could never seem to clearly “read”.

Because I’d begun to get a handle on that as well, on the various sensations that flooded my mind when another person came into contact with me. And it happened only when there was skin-to-skin contact; it might be fingers taking my pulse, a helping hand as they changed my linens or as one of the nurses helped me pee into the plastic bottle, a sponge bath, or a doctor or technician running tests that required human contact. Anytime another’s skin met mine absent an intervening rubber glove, gown, or bandage, their emotions poured, unsolicited, into my mind.

And that’s all it was; I wasn’t “reading their minds”. I had no idea what they were thinking, or even why they might feel sad, angry, worried, happy, harried, confused, frightened, or even sexually aroused; all I knew is that they were feeling these things. I was “reading” them, their feelings and emotions, but not their thoughts.

It had quickly become clear that their emotions were, in fact, what I was somehow sensing, because I could easily separate them from my own emotions and sometimes - quite often, really - the person would be talking to me, making small talk about their day or their life, and what they were saying matched up very well with the emotions I was sensing. Occam’s Razor pretty much dictated the trajectory of my thought process at that point, as I puzzled out what was going on.

Accordingly, it didn’t take a lot of brilliant detective work to figure out what I was picking up; the question I was unable to answer was why and how. The accident, somehow, whether it was the lightning strike, a blow to the head, or even my brief visits to the other side, had given me a strange and bewildering new power, although maybe that’s the wrong word for something I had no control over; it seemed, you see, that I had no ability to prevent these feelings and emotions of others from entering my mind, not once they touched me.

It was weird at first, but as I began to understand it better I became accustomed to it, and even to welcome it as it allowed me to quickly establish a close rapport with what were often complete strangers. When you’re living essentially alone on an island, injured and helpless, wholly dependent on others while the busy world swirls around you, that type of rapport becomes a life jacket for your sanity.

I began to wonder if the quick rapport I was able to develop with people – something I’d had no affinity for prior to my accident and coma – might also be, in part, because they were somehow getting return signals from my mind. It seemed that if someone was depressed or sad, that when I picked up on it and wished I could help, could somehow cheer them up or offer them some form of solace, they would begin to cheer up and their dark mood would lift. I don’t think I’d ever been particularly empathetic before, but now, for some reason, it had become a huge part of who I was.

If one of my caregivers came in angry or frustrated about something in their life I tried to think of calm and peaceful things, things that might soothe me if I was troubled, and I could begin to sense their anger dissipate; if they were projecting worry or anxiety, I tried to return serenity and self-assurance and often watched their frown and their body-language change as their emotions calmed.

Other times I’d meet one of the other rehab patients, people whose injuries ran the gamut from serious accidents like my own to losing limbs or bodily functions to cancer or another disease, and older folks recovering from illness who were trying to regain enough strength and mobility to be functional and independent. I got pretty good at sorting emotions like sadness from worry, or pain from fear. Some were hopeful and optimistic, others were terrified that they weren’t cured, that they were dying still, or were destined for more suffering and pain. Depression, loneliness, and fear (of death, I think) was common among the older patients

It was a barrage of emotions and sensations, some of them quite horrible, but once I recognized what it was, that the emotions were not my own, I was able to compartmentalize. I felt that sometimes I was able to help some of these people, to offer some sense of solace; other times I might be less successful, but either way, it always happened in milliseconds. The emotion transfers were nearly instantaneous, as fast as a thought or a flash of light, perhaps a thousandth as long as the blink of an eye, not the long, drawn-out process it takes me to explain it here.

Still, while I had this understanding and the sense that their change of disposition might be, at least in part, because of me, I had no way to be sure. I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it without them thinking I was nuts, think that maybe I’d been too long without oxygen or taken a blow to the head that they’d somehow missed. Being trapped at the rehab center was bad enough without also getting one of those nice rooms with the padded walls and a new jacket with sleeves that tie in the back, so I didn’t tell anyone what I was feeling.

Ella would have understood, I could have talked to her about it and we could have even tested it on each other, but now she was a thousand miles away and I knew it wouldn’t work over the phone; it required human contact, that was a constant. We’d always had a link, of course, as twins sometimes do, but she’d been the first person I’d “read” in this way upon awakening, through her touch, and she had even seemed to sense something when I did, so it would have been a good experiment.

Surprisingly, my first real confirmation that things were flowing both ways came from Eva. I had sort of a love-hate relationship with the Nordic Ice Queen by that point, my beautiful, muscular, relentless, sadistic therapist; I loved how she looked, of course, like some Norse goddess or Valkyrie, and, much as it pains me to admit it, I loved that she worked me hard and pushed me to heal, to succeed, to always do just one more rep of anything than I thought I could despite the pain.

I hated her for that same reason, her insistence that I suffer for my own good, and for never seeming to view me as anything more than one more patient, one more cripple, one more piece of damaged meat. Pain was part of her deal, and she was seemingly okay with that.

Also, she was oblivious to my modesty. When working on an injured person, mostly in a prone position and pretty much unable to wear anything more than a stupid hospital gown due to the casts, steel rods, bandages (and bandage changes), etc., modesty is difficult at best. They’re working on your body, manipulating you this way and that, and things inevitably become uncovered.

The others, Brad and Julia, made a pretense of respecting my modesty, throwing a towel across my middle or something; Eva showed no such concern, always pushing ahead to the next exercise, the next stretch, the next position. For a thirty-five-year-old man, it was often humiliating and always uncomfortable to have my bare ass hanging out and my limp cock and balls flopping around or dangling as she flipped me this way and that, but she never seemed to even notice.

Accordingly, it was a surprise when the Ice Queen thawed suddenly at the end of one of our sessions. I’d frequently sensed impatience in her, sometimes frustration, and quite often sexual arousal, but none of those were surprising in a fit, healthy, uber-athletic young female. That day, as she’d worked my right leg, the one with the external steel bars down its length to hold the femur and knee rigid, she’d hurt me.

They had adjusted the bars that morning, turning the threaded portion to add a tiny bit of length, stretching my leg so that it wouldn’t end up shorter than my left one. As a result, I was already tender.

Eva manipulating the ankle to force me to work the muscles in my foot and calf had been okay; when she’d lifted and pushed my whole leg upright toward my shoulder to work the hip, turning me into a prone version of a Radio City Music Hall Rockette (other than the dangly bits, which she’d characteristically left on full display) it hurt badly and I groaned in pain, not something I often did.

Eva had immediately gone gentle, lowering my leg softly and apologizing for hurting me – another unheard-of occurrence.

“Jon, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a little sore, I think; they racked that leg this morning.”

“I saw that on your chart; I should have been more careful. You’re sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine. You probably get tired of people pissing and moaning, whining about being hurt when you’re trying to help them.” I’d sensed that in her before, that impatience. To my surprise, she answered honestly, sitting down on the pad beside me and laying her hand on my bare chest.

This time, through her hand, I felt only compassion – and her usual racing libido, of course – as she said, “I suppose I do, yes, but never with you. You virtually never complain, and you work harder than anyone I’ve ever had as a patient.” She grinned, displaying perfect, brilliantly white teeth as she went on, “Plus, you don’t keep babbling with a lot of useless small talk and you aren’t constantly trying to hit on me or cop a feel.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I thought I’d wait until the cast was off to sneak a grope, and I’m not quite up to asking you to dance just yet. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Also, I was a little worried that you might beat me to a pulp since I’m already halfway there.”

“With all of the painkillers and other meds you’re on, you probably can’t get it up anyway, right?”

Her usual bluntness seemed to have returned, and I felt myself blush. “I haven’t really noticed any stirrings in that department since the accident, no.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, you will; it’s just the meds, and they’ll start weaning you off those as soon as they think it’s feasible. Besides, I’m gay – lesbian – so it wouldn’t really interest me anyway. Too bad, ‘cause you’re kinda cute otherwise.”

I wasn’t totally shocked, just mildly surprised that I hadn’t picked up any hint of her sexual preferences with my new spidey-senses; apparently, gaydar was an extra-cost option that I hadn’t purchased. Maybe if I’d died four times instead of three…

She went on. “In that regard, I really need to talk to you about something, if it’s okay with you. I’ll warn you, it’s very personal and might get awkward.”

She’d just asked me very bluntly about my impotence, and, as usual with Eva, I was lying there mostly exposed, gown and sheet in disarray. “First tell me this, Eva; at what point has all this not been awkward?”

She laughed again but got up and closed the door before returning to my side. “Okay, fair enough, but this is different. Weird-different, but good too.” She hesitated, then plunged. “The thing is this; when I work with you, I feel totally different after. I feel good, better than when we start. If I’m harried or pissed off or just having a rotten day when I walk in, it all just seems to go away and when we’re done I feel better.”

“Maybe that’s just because you know you’re done with me for the day.” I went for casual humor, but in truth, I was elated that my efforts seemed to have worked, at least on Eva.

She smiled but refused to be put off. “No, seriously; you’re the one patient I look forward to working with, which hasn’t happened for a while. I’m really kind of burnt out on dealing with sick and injured people, which probably means I need a long vacation, but when I draw your therapy on my chart it makes my whole day. Honestly, some days I’m not sure which of us is giving therapy and which is receiving it.”

“Well, I’m glad it works that way for you, Eva. People have told me before that when things are all fucked up, I seem an island of calm in a sea of turmoil; maybe you’re picking up on that. I’m usually a very laid-back, easy-going person.”

“Maybe, if that was all I felt. Okay, here’s the truly awkward part; in addition to any stress or anger somehow magically melting away, by the end of our sessions I’m insanely horny!”

At a complete loss for words, I said nothing, and she rushed on as if she thought that if she didn’t blurt it out all at once she might never work up the courage to broach the subject again. “I mean just hugely, unnaturally aroused, Jon, panties soaked and nipples hard as diamonds, my whole body just lit up. I don’t understand it, but it happens every time, and only when I work on you. It’s almost unbearable, although my girlfriend sure appreciates it!”

I was stunned by her admission, but also at a loss. I fell back on humor, my only recourse. “Well, gosh… I don’t know what to say to that, Eva. I mean, I’m flattered, of course, that seeing my magnificent body in all its splendor has that effect on you… wait, is that why you’re always messing around and getting me naked?”

“Jon, I’m serious – and besides, I don’t find you sexually attractive. No offense.”

“Nah, none taken; what guy would be offended when a gorgeous young blond tells him he’s not attractive? I mean, really.”

She grinned. “I just told you I’m a lesbian; the male body is interesting in its own way, aesthetically-speaking, but I’m not sexually attracted to it. I mean, you’re cute, and I love your sense of humor. I’m sure, if I was straight, that I’d find you very attractive, even with your male equipment out of order. So tell me, Jon, what are you doing to me?”

“First, Eva, whether you are attracted to a man or not, reminding him that he’s impotent is bad form, even if it’s only temporary; whipping his dead horse is still whipping a dead horse. Maybe lesbians don’t instinctively know that. Second, I don’t know what’s happening to you. I try to be calm, I try to not upset you if I sense you’re having a rough day or your nerves are a little frayed, and I try to do what I’m told. Pheromones, maybe?”

I was not about to tell her that I had a better idea of what was going on, even if I had no idea how her intense arousal could possibly be tied to it. I’m not a doctor, lawyer, or bio-ethicist, but I suspect that poking around in another person’s mind without their knowledge and permission, even with the best of intentions and in a very limited way, was not a very honorable or ethical thing to do. Plus, there was the ever-present danger of being thought insane.

She wasn’t satisfied with my answer. “It’s not pheromones. Why would you have pheromones different from every other guy, all the guys I don’t respond to? Besides, I get the sense that I’m not really responding to you, per se, but just to being with you.”

“Well… you’re a normal, healthy, very fit woman. Don’t you usually have a healthy sex drive?” I knew she did, of course; I’d sensed it on more than one occasion.

“Of course I do, but this is different, way more powerful and urgent – and besides, Brad feels it too. He says that after a session with you, his cock is so hard he could split rocks with it.”

“Oh. Well, that’s disturbing.”

She chuckled. “He’s straight, Jon, totally, unabashedly straight. In fact, he, unlike you, hits on me all the time, even though he knows it’s not going anywhere. Yet, for some reason, he responds to you.”

“You and Brad have actually discussed this… this, uh, effect I supposedly have on you?”

“Yes, because it’s so weird. We both love to work with you because it invariably makes for a really special day, but we’re both so intensely aroused afterward that we’re barely functional.”

“Eva, I just don’t know. I’m not usually a big believer in coincidence, but…”

“It’s not a coincidence.”

“You’re probably right. I’m sorry, maybe it will pass. I just… wait a second; does Julia get this same side-effect or after-effect or whatever?”

She shook her head. “Julia… Julia is hard to talk to. She’s kind of closed off, but she’s had a tough life. We try to be understanding, to be friends, but she keeps everyone at arm’s length, so I really have no idea if she’s felt it or not. She’s nice, and very talented at her job, but hard to get to know.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I get the same vibe. Too bad; she seems like such a sweetheart. You mentioned her having a tough life?”

Eva nodded. “Domestic issues, among other things. I don’t know the whole story, and it wouldn’t be right for me to tell you if I did.”

“True, and I wouldn’t want you to. Ah well, I hope she finds happiness someday.” I grinned. “So tell me, Eva; this insanely horny thing you mentioned, are you there now?”

She laughed. “Yes, I am, damn you! I’ll probably have to go in the bathroom or locker room and rub one out before I can even drive home.”

“You selling tickets? That just might put the lead in my pencil. I mean, as a dedicated therapist and medical professional, you should offer…”

“Funny man - and no, no spectators! I’ll see you in a couple of days; in the meanwhile, try to figure out what you’re doing to us, okay?”

I assured her that I would, but I had no idea what was causing the sexual arousal that she and Brad had experienced. It was good to get some confirmation that I wasn’t completely imagining things when I’d sensed that I was influencing their moods by trying to project calming emotions into them; at least to some degree I seemed to have the ability to transfer certain emotions to others, not just to read theirs. A two-way street, apparently, although the origins of it and the mechanism by which it worked were a complete mystery.

The potential cause of their sexual arousal, however, continued to intrigue me. All I could think was that maybe it was an unintended side-effect of pushing my emotions into their minds. Maybe it caused the release of certain endorphins or triggered something in the hypothalamus or limbic system that punched up their sexual response. It’s not like I was some irresistible physical specimen, as Eva had so bluntly assured me. In the best of circumstances, I was average in almost every measure; now, covered in bruises, scrapes, wounds, bandages, casts, and other ugliness - and impotent, to boot - I was certainly no prize!

On the other hand, if they were reading something else from me, in my current condition, what was going to happen as I got healthy? At that stage, just a couple of weeks after my awakening, it wasn’t just my cock that didn’t work. I couldn’t get it up, which wasn’t much of a surprise given the trauma my body had experienced, but my libido was utterly non-existent as well. The doctor had told me that would likely be the case, between the injuries and the drugs. Admittedly, I was in no physical condition to attend an orgy, but still, it was discouraging.

I could see and enjoy beauty, of course, whether it was the bold, blonde, overwhelming presence of Eva, the gentle, quiet strength and beauty of Julia, or the buxom, soft, full-bodied beauty of my favorite nurse, Angie, she of the sparkling eyes, quick laugh, soft, full lips and incredibly relaxing sponge baths and massages.

All of them were beautiful and sexy in very different ways; I could still recognize that, and prior to the accident, I would have inevitably responded sexually to each of them. Now, though, zip, nada, no flush, no jump in my heart rate, no stirring or stiffening of any dangly bits. I was working overtime in my head, bombarded by other’s emotions despite the fog of drugs, but dead below the waist.

In one respect it was good because I didn’t have to worry about any embarrassing unwanted erections, given that they all saw me in various states of undress regularly. In another respect it was very emasculating; I knew they were compassionate and were not judging me in my injured state, but a man’s cock shouldn’t just always hang limp and useless in the presence of young, vital, beautiful women. Being embarrassed by an erection, and, conversely, also being embarrassed by utterly failing to ever show any indication of arousal is ridiculous, I know, but that’s how I felt.

Still, it raised the question: If they were getting such a powerful sexual charge from me now, in my essentially asexual condition (and, admittedly, I didn’t know if Julia or Angie or anyone else felt what Eva and Brad did) what was going to happen when my libido returned, and my own sexuality reignited, assuming it did? Fuck, if the "side-effect" was somehow tied to my own level of arousal I might unintentionally drive them mad with lust!